Re-Workshop/Fighters
Fighters are a class that form the largest part of League's champion roster, and have remained a pretty common sight in every game thanks to their general flexibility. However, a great deal many fighters suffer from a lack of originality, with many champions overlapping heavily in both gameplay and niche, and on top of that many fighters lack a real niche to speak of, being so flexible that they don't shine at anything in particular. This issue is compounded by the plethora of on-demand stats fighter champions tend to receive on their abilities, which usually make them good at standard tanky DPS fare in the least interesting way possible. The goals of the changes below are the following: Proper Niches= For a long while, especially during Seasons One and Two, the overall design paradigm for fighters was simply "be strong". The result for that timeline has been a long stream of fighters who often lack any real specialty or reason to be picked over another besides vague notions of overall versatility, scaling or conformity to the current meta (what's specialty, for example?). The Juggernaut update carved out a space for low-mobility, low-reach fighters to shine in their own unique way, with more likely coming along, but on top of that there is also a wide array of diver/bruiser-type fighters who all tend to have the same mix of effects on their kit, and who each need a bit more differentiation and specialization. |-| Involved Gameplay= A common criticism of fighters is that combat between them tends to turn into "noodle fights", i.e. protracted duels involving mostly basic attacks that don't produce major results at any given instant. Tied into this is the fact that a lot of fighters tend to not have that much strategic or mechanical depth, which in turn limits the ways in which they can feel powerful or successful. The most common example of power on fighters that carries too little gameplay is free stat steroids: while it's absolutely possible to have meaningful and substantially powerful stat bonuses ( transformations, for example, or Noxian Might), those effects trade off reliability for their power, and require those champions to work a little to earn that extra strength. In general, the power given to fighters needs to be a little less on-demand, and should carry a deeper level of strategic choice, and perhaps occasional mechanical skill, which would then allow each individual ability to noticeably affect the course of battle. |-| Greater Team Contributions= For a long while, fighters epitomized selfish power, with ability sets and typical builds focused purely on making themselves stronger while caring little for more team-oriented strength. While that has become significantly less true now, with many prominent fighter items providing bonuses that can benefit allies and contribute to teamfights, as well as many modern fighters having kits capable of working well with others, a lot of fighter champions still fail to provide much for their team, or even put their team-beneficial effects (such as crowd control) to the use of their allies. As much as fighters should still carry a lot of personal strength, perhaps the greatest persistent self-oriented power out of any class, that power deserves to be expressed in a manner that makes those fighters a valuable asset to their team, rather than lone wolves with little interest in working with their allies besides the potential to rack up more kills. * **Passive removed. ** Garen surrounds himself with a barrier that is split in four, protecting him from one champion or epic monster basic attack or ability on each. The protection reduces physical damage by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 % , magic damage by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 % and the duration of any crowd control effects by 35% . Emptylord= * **Passive removed. **Banner attack speed removed. ** Grants to surrounding allied champions, causing their attacks to apply the bonus damage. The immunity timer on Martial Cadence is reduced to (somewhere between 1 and 0 seconds; either scaling or flat) for enemies within the standard's area, also reducing pre-existing timers. * **Damage removed. **Gap closer removed. The arena is now erected centered around Jarvan and his current attack target, or nearest enemy. **Radius of effect slightly increased. ** Jarvan now plants a Demacian Standard in the center of the area. Cast animation now has Jarvan plant his weapon into the ground, causing inward spikes to surround him. |-| Willbachbakal= ;Niche: The Team Position Freezer * Jarvan IV is a well-balanced and well-loved champion, having enjoyed a fairly stable play rate over the past few seasons without ever doing anything too horrendously unhealthy. However, this stability has also carried the tradeoff of not making him stand out too much at anything in particular, and recently he's gradually declined as both a top and jungle pick in the face of more specifically-oriented champions, particularly since the rise of late-game junglers has made his strength as an early game pick a bit less valuable. Part of his issue comes from him having a bit of power all over the place, including low-visibility areas (why does he have an attack speed aura?), which has also likely preventing him from having truly concentrated power (his shield doesn't really scale, for example). Additionally, there's a certain degree of over-versatility or confusion to his skillset: he's meant to be really good at diving, but has a certain degree of poke too, in spite of having some DPS and sustained fighting power he has a ton of burst (he occasionally turns into an "assassin tank" as a result), and his passive, while really useful at clearing, is always a bit less useful than it could be due to him dealing ability damage first before getting into melee range. The goal of these changes is to trim off or move some of his less valuable power while putting a lot more power into his ability to initiate, pin down masses of enemies at a time and move around at tremendous speeds. * Stats: ** Base attack speed increased to 0.694 from 0.658. ** Attack speed growth increased to from . * ** Damage cap now only applies against monsters. ** Applies on abilities as well as basic attacks. * ** Range increased to 1100 from 770. ** Cooldown changed to from . ** Mana cost changed to 60 at all ranks from . ** Damage reduced to bonus AD)}} from . ** Damage is now reduced by 15% per enemy minion hit, down to a minimum of 33% damage. ** reduction removed. ** now matches Jarvan IV's model and factors in his size. * ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Shield duration reduced to 3 from 5. ** Shield strength changed to from . ** Shield increase per nearby enemy champion changed to 50% from . ** strength increased to from . ** no longer applies instantly, but persists around Jarvan IV as long as the shield holds. * ** Range increased to 1000 from 830. ** Mana cost increased to 60 from 55. ** Cooldown changed to from . ** removed. ** Active no longer grants allies . ** Scaling changed to bonus AD}} from . ** Damage type changed to physical from magic. ** Flag duration reduced to seconds from 8 at all ranks. ** Flag now causes all nearby enemies to receive every time they take champion damage from Jarvan IV's allies (though not Jarvan IV himself), with the radius clearly marked and visible to all. ** Aura radius reduced to 300 from 600. ** radius reduced to 300 from 700 to match its aura range. * ** Mana cost reduced to 100 at all ranks from . ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Dash removed. ** Active is now centered around Jarvan IV and the nearest enemy champion within range. ** Active radius increased to 400 from 325. ** radius reduced to 400 from 825 to match its area of effect. ** Damage removed. ** Circle duration changed to from at all ranks. ** Circle now all enemies who collide with its walls from within. ;Niche: The Blind Monk (For Real) * Lee Sin presents some of the most interesting design conundrums in League. On one hand, he's a beloved champion who's enjoyed consistently high popularity since his release, is really fun overall to play as and against, and who stands out among the roster even in a game populated by an increasing number of unconventional effects and mobility. On the other hand, he's also so popular and versatile that it's caused serious issues for the health of the game, and especially the jungle, for years, as he can do pretty much everything well and has demanded similarly overloaded design on junglers for a very long time in order to compete with him, often crowding out the rest. Practically his entire kit is iconic, including his identity as a jack-of-all trades, but that also means he lacks a major weakness, which just led him to being nerfed so much over time that he can only be played successfully at a high level of mastery. There are two main goals to these changes: the first is to concentrate his power as much as possible, removing more persistent and oftentimes less visible instances of power (namely, his attack speed and sustain steroids) in favor of even stronger abilities, which would place even more importance on his unique combination of versatile mobility, utility and crowd control, and the second is to give him a genuine weakness. In this case, the solution might in fact be to carry his namesake to its fullest extent by making him truly blind, which would be a good reason to seriously buff everything else about him. As a champion with a unique vision paradigm (and deficit), he would not only have a legitimate reason to have both heavy personal power and ally synergy, and so huge overall versatility, but he'd also have unique synergies with certain ally comps (namely aggressive, vision- and area dominance-oriented comps), along with weaknesses to some enemy comps (particularly those good at countering vision and poking from a distance). * Stats: ** Base health increased to 600 from . ** Health growth increased to 100 from 85. ** Base health regeneration increased to 10 from . ** Health regeneration growth increased to 1 from . ** Base attack damage reduced to 60 from . ** Attack damage growth increased to 4 from 3.2. ** Base attack speed increased to 0.694 from 0.651. ** Attack speed growth increased to 4% from 3%. ** Base armor increased to 30 from . ** Armor growth increased to 4 from . ** Base movement speed increased to 355 from 350. ** Is now completely manaless, and no longer uses energy. * ** Renamed to Second Sight. ** Reworked: Lee Sin is blind, and his is reduced to his immediate surroundings (200 at his base size) and shared vision. However, enemies within 1300 units of him who perform any action other than movement reveal their position at the time of the action in a manner similar to , and his damaging abilities all enemies hit for 3 seconds. * ** Range increased to 1300 from 1100. ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Damage increased to from . ** No longer grants of the target. * ** Can now be used from any range, rather than a maximum of 1300 units from the enemy hit by . ** Can only be used if the target remains visible to Lee Sin. ** Damage reduced to from . *** Damage cap removed. * ** Renamed to Iron Will. ** Dash removed. ** Cooldown reduced to from 14 at all ranks. ** Shield duration reduced to from 2. ** Shield strength increased to from . * ** Renamed to Safeguard. ** Can only be used while the shield on holds. ** Active reworked: Lee Sin dashes to the target ally or ward within 700 units. If he targeted a champion, they receive Iron Will's shield and he places himself between them and the nearest visible enemy champion. *** If Lee Sin targets an area in range that has no nearby allies, he automatically lays down the most expendable ward in his inventory at the target location and dashes to it. * ** Cooldown reduced to from 10 at all ranks. ** Damage increased to from . ** Damage type changed to physical from magic. ** No longer grants of targets. * ** Can now be used from any range, rather than a maximum of 500 units from enemies hit by . ** Can now only be used if the affected enemies remain visible to Lee Sin. ** duration reduced to from 4. ** strength increased to a persistent from a decaying . * ** Damage changed to of target's maximum health}} from . ** Damage is now identical for all targets hit. * **One rank in Children of the Grave is given freely at level 1. ** Mordekaiser enslaves the souls of lesser minions and monsters he kills. At rank 2, Mordekaiser gains the ability to enslave the souls of champions. At rank 3, Mordekaiser gains the ability to enslave siege minions and large monsters. At rank 4, Mordekaiser gains the ability to enslave the souls of Super Minions and the Dragon. Enslaved minions and non-epic monsters behave autonomously, last for 8 seconds, and Mordekaiser can have up to 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 at any one time. Champions and the Dragon have a 10 second takedown timer to trigger Children of the Grave, their souls can be controlled using the R key, last for 30 seconds and Mordekaiser can only have one at a time. There is ** Commands pet. *'Niche: The flail and the battering ram.' * ** New destroys sections of temporary terrain. Reinstating the former bug. ;Niche: The Back Line Diver * Vi's enjoyed decent play since her release, and while a small part of the community's been recently complaining about her ultimate's counterplay (or lack of it), that in itself has worked more as a unique advantage to her and her team than a real detriment to gameplay overall. The reliability to her point-and-click CC ultimate has allowed her to shine above others as a diver capable of reliably picking marksmen out, and allows her to become a great last-resort measure against kite-heavy marksmen hiding behind otherwise impenetrable front lines. However, what might not be so healthy on her is the amount of fairly reliable burst she gets to have in addition to those effects, which has often led to frustration from marksmen being singled out and busted before they had a real opportunity to recover from her ult. The goal of these changes is to shift that power a little bit more towards DPS, allowing her to output even better consistent power when in the thick of combat, and adjust her squishy-busting strength in a manner that would involve her teammates more, without doing too much to her gameplay. * ** Shield strength increased to from . ** Shield duration reduced to 2 seconds from 3 seconds. ** Cooldown changed to 23 - (Vi's level) from . ** Now only applies when damaging an enemy champion or large monster, rather than any enemy. * ** Maximum range increased to 750 from 725. ** Damage changed to a constant , regardless of how much Vi charged the ability. *** Damage is also the same for all enemies hit, and so is no longer increased against champions. * ** Damage increased to of target's maximum health}} from % per 100}}bonus AD)}} of target's maximum health}}. ** Is now a . ** No longer provides . ** No longer reduces the target's . ** Now increases the target's damage taken by Vi's allies (but not Vi herself) by 10% for 4 seconds. * ** Damage changed to at all ranks from . ** Recharge time changed to from . * ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Range increased to 1000 from 800. ** Mana cost reduced to 100 at all ranks from . ** changed to from at all ranks. ** Damage reduced to from . ** No longer deals reduced damage to secondary targets. ** Vi is no longer immune to crowd control while dashing.